


skies of glitter, stars of pearl

by falsettodrop



Category: Figure Skating RPF, Olympics RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe - Roommates/Housemates, Exhibitionism, F/M, Light Dom/sub, Mental Health Issues, Praise Kink, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-14
Updated: 2019-02-14
Packaged: 2019-10-28 00:42:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17777303
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/falsettodrop/pseuds/falsettodrop
Summary: Tessa once read a very thorough research study which outlined the health benefits of sleeping beside another person. Sue her if she wants to test that hypothesis.So, sometimes Scott sleeps in her bed, now. Big deal.





	skies of glitter, stars of pearl

**Author's Note:**

  * For [konahau (naheka)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/naheka/gifts).



> Dedications, credits, and thanks go to:  
> – [konahau](https://archiveofourown.org/users/naheka/pseuds/konahau), who prompted this idea (and some other hilarious ones, but this spoke to me the most). I would die for you but you are well aware of that by now.  
> – [bucketofrice](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bucketofrice) and [sinkingsidewalks](https://archiveofourown.org/users/sinkingsidewalks), who gave this a grammar edit and helped me sound intelligible.  
> \- [restlessvirtue](https://archiveofourown.org/users/restlessvirtue), who never fails to reassure me that what I write is not crap.  
> – [Aimée](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nats_North_by_North), who asked me to _write arm kink, whatever that is_ , so uh... here’s some version of that shoehorned into here? Bahahaha.  
> – _The Writers’ Guild_ , who are undoubtedly my safe space. Thanks for being sane and organizing fun stuff like this so we have a good time once in a while, buds.

Scott is singing in the shower again, horrendously off-tune.

Let it be known that Tessa adores that boy—she’d do anything for him, if she’s honest, to an almost outlandish degree—but she knows that his voice is not _that_ bad. He’s also taking an inexplicably long time in the bath again despite the fact that he does not have class this morning; on the contrary, she’s the one who will be trekking her way through the Canadian snowbanks to get to her lectures on time. So, shouldn’t she be allowed precedent to use the bathroom first?

But alas, she woke up later than he did, as _always_ , and must now wait until he’s finished to go brush her teeth.

She glances at her bedside clock. Okay, that’s a no-go—she needs to get ready now if she’s going to be on time. So, fuck it.

Tessa walks into the bathroom, one part of her praying his entire naked body is firmly behind the shower curtain and not bizarrely out of the shower for whatever reason, the other part of her simply irritated that he’s taking forever. She ensures that her movements in opening the door, grabbing her toothbrush, and even knocking a random hair product for the hell of it, are incredibly loud and impossible not to hear. She runs the tap water as she begins to brush her teeth, turning it up to full throttle out of spite.

(Okay, maybe she’s overdoing the petty thing. Sue her for not being eco-friendly.)

She can still hear him rustling from his shower, probably still in the process of cleaning himself, but Scott’s singing comes to a halt once he realizes that he’s no longer the only one in the room.

Then, he sticks his head out from behind the shower curtain. Tessa glances at him in the mirror, being sure to make her irritation clear on her face; his eyes are closed in attempt to not get soap in them and he looks like a complete dork. “Hell- _o_?” Scott says, his voice tinted with a teasing lilt. “Occupied!”

“Occupied, my ass,” she tries to say, but her mouth is full of toothbrush and toothpaste so it comes out garbled. He flashes her a wide grin, hair styled in shampoo spikes, then disappears behind the curtain again as if he’s completely unbothered by her presence. _Dork_.

She can see an outline of his body through the shower curtain if she looks closely enough, but she turns away quickly once she realizes what exactly she’s staring at.

Spitting the toothpaste into the sink, she scrubs her tongue with the toothbrush as he turns off the shower and reaches an arm out from behind the curtain to grab the towel on the rack. He flails for several seconds, looking absolutely ridiculous.

She spits the remainder of the toothpaste out a final time, takes her time rinsing her mouth, and then begrudgingly decides to take pity on him. “Do you want me to hand you the towel?”

His hand retreats behind the curtain, and then he says, “Nah, I’m just gonna walk out naked instead.”

“No! Don’t!” she exclaims, much too loudly, wide-eyed and internally panicking over the thought.

Scott cracks up at her reaction and she bristles. He enjoys getting a rise out of her _way_ too much for someone who claims to be her best friend.

She reaches over to grab the towel on the rack and throws it over the rail. Then she jets from the bathroom like she’s acquired superhuman speed, before he actually _does_ decide to come out naked as some kind of absurd joke.

(So, the run-down:

Tessa and Scott do this song and dance much too often. The overly domestic, not minding personal space thing. Sometimes it goes a little too far, like when he says _I’m gonna come out naked_ , but most of the time it’s fairly normal and not even something she realizes when she’s in the moment. There’s no reason it _shouldn’t_ be normal, right? He’s been her best friend for years, and living with him was simply the next, most natural step in their friendship.

Or, at least, that’s what she tells herself.)

She shakes her head, then puts it out of mind. She needs to get ready for class. _Check yourself, Virtue_ , she reminds herself as she organizes her bookbag for school.

Half an hour later, when she’s shoved two textbooks into her backpack and changed into an outfit that’s more appropriate to go out in public in, he’s in the kitchen wearing low-slung pajama pants, flipping pancakes over a pan on the stovetop. His back and arms and shoulders are on full display, as he’s chosen to go without a shirt, and she’s suddenly reminded all over again of how much time he spends at the gym or at the rink playing on the hockey team.

(And, look, Tessa can admire her attractive best friend, all right? She has eyes, it’s just a fact that he looks like that. It’s doing a disservice to humankind if she doesn’t, at the very least, _notice_ his looks during moments when the general population cannot. She figures that _someone_ should be gaining something from these tragic occurrences.

She also, very pointedly, does not think about why she refers to the moments as _tragic_ in her mind.)

She inhales, licking her lips. The smell of the pancakes is really getting to her, and she wants to eat at least five of them, but she also knows that she has to leave for class within the next five minutes.

“Have you seen my meds anywhere?” she asks after she walks up next to him, sifting through the cupboard where they’re usually stored.

“Oh, sorry, I put it on the table for you,” Scott tells her. She twists to look at the kitchen table, and there they are: her anxiety medication bottle and a glass of cold water, in the exact way that she takes it every morning.

Typical Scott. She nudges him, waiting for his eyes to reach her face. “Thank you,” she says softly, smiling as she thinks about how unbelievably lucky she is that she has a best friend and roommate that continues to be so thoughtful. She pecks him on the cheek, quick as a bandit, and dashes away—but not fast enough that she doesn’t catch the sweet, bashful smile that forms on Scott’s face in response.

She swallows her Prozac while gulping down the rest of the water. “Hey,” Scott calls out with his back still to her. “Do you want any?”

Tessa’s stomach grumbles as she thinks of butter-soft pancakes and deliciously sugary maple syrup. “Mm, yes—” her tone turns regretful as she watches him flip another finished one onto the plate on the countertop, “...but I can’t.”

Scott turns off the stove, seemingly done with his task, and turns to see the sad look on her face. He laughs at her melodrama. “Of course you can. I’ll pack it for you to take to class?”

She can already feel herself salivating. “Really?” she says, voice turning hopeful.

He snorts and gives her the fondest look. “Yes, T. I’ll put it in the tupperware.”

She gives a little bunny-hop, excited to devour her pancakes during her lecture. “God, you’re the best.”

“Don’t you forget it.”

 

 _Number?_ , is the text she receives during her lunch break.

Tessa sighs. The Number System was designed after Tessa got her official diagnosis, something that she and Scott came up with to gage her mood levels. One (or even zero) meant good, upwards of ten meant bad.

(They began applying it to other things, unrelated to mental health, as a bit of an absurd inside joke a few years ago as well. Sometimes he’ll ask her if she’s hungry and say, _Number?_ and she’ll reply on a scale. It’s one of the reasons people say that they can never understand them when they talk—their inside jokes and personal anecdotes don’t really make sense, on a public-consumption level.)

She knew, and predicted, that Scott would worry over her this week, but it doesn’t mean that she’s okay with him wasting energy thinking about her current mental state. She has three exams over the next few days and it’s safe to say that she’s been fairly stressed out as of thus far. Tessa knows she’s in due for a little stress-puke later on in the week.

 _Like a four, maybe_ , she replies honestly, knowing he takes The System very seriously. Then, trying to distract him with a very obvious change in subject, she asks: _Did you pay the hydro bill this month by the way?_

_What!_

_No!_

_You said you had it covered last month._

_Tessa!_

She cackles when she reads his four texts that were sent in quick succession. She chooses not to reply and to let him freak out a bit over her trick, focusing on her chicken salad as she looks through her notes. She can call it payback for the shower incident this morning.

Ten minutes later, a bit faster than she expected him to be, he messages her again. _Okay, that was just mean. You know that I get freaked out about unpaid bills._

She chuckles. He really is meticulous about that stuff. _Sorry, love you_ , she sends, signing it with a little heart emoticon. _Dinner later?_

_Maybe._

She can practically hear him pouting over the text, and rolls her eyes. _Stop being a big baby and love me back._

 _Love you back_ , he sends automatically.

She packs her stuff up, not realizing that she’s smiling as she prepares for her next lecture.

  

She calls him while she’s waiting for the crosswalk to turn green. “Hey, you aren’t busy, right?”

“Eh, not really,” Scott’s voice replies over the phone, but he sounds distracted and she can hear him typing something furiously on his laptop.

“It’s okay! I’m just on my way home, and—”

“Oh, it’s dark outside,” Scott mutters over the line, almost as if he’s saying it to himself and only now realizing the time. “You walking home alone?”

“Yeah,” she answers, finally crossing the street. Their apartment is only two blocks away, she can go without him. “You’re busy, though—”

“Never too busy for you,” Scott cuts in firmly, predictable as ever. ( _Kind as ever, thoughtful as ever_.) “Tell me about your class today, nerd.”

Tessa laughs. “Am I the nerd? We’re both at school for the same program.”

“Yeah, but you’re the smart one.”

She _tsk_ s. “Bull _shit_ ,” she says slowly, enunciating each syllable. “You just like to pretend like I’m the smart one, but we both know the truth. You can’t fool me, Moir; we both had the grades to get into business school.”

“Hush, T,” he says easily, backing down because he knows she’ll win this argument. She always does. “Fine, don’t tell me about class, then. How was your day otherwise?”

The walk home passes by so quickly that she doesn’t even feel the chilling January air.

 

“ _Save meeeeeeee_ ,” she intones into her stack of research papers. Her neck is starting to hurt from all the reading she’s doing at her desk, and she’s definitely going to have crick in her back by the end of the week.

Scott appears at her bedroom door, having heard her whining from his place in the kitchen. “Alright, it’s time for you to go to bed.”

“But I need to finish—”

“No, you don’t,” Scott cuts her off. “What you _need_ is sleep. A stressed-out Tessa is not a fun Tessa.”

She pouts. “You’re being mean to my other Tessa,” she tells him, feeling a bit delirious.

Scott’s giving her that look—the very particular fond one that reads as _you’re trying to be cute and I hate you because it’s sort of working but you’re still not getting out of this_. “I love all Tessas, but stressed Tessa makes me worry too much,” he says firmly, standing his ground. “So, sleep time.”

“Ugh, fine,” she tells him, sticking out her tongue for good measure.

She shoos him away so that she can change into her pajamas and decides on a tank top and some cotton bottoms with little hearts all over them. She has way too many pairs of holiday-themed pajama sets.

When she walks into the bathroom to stand next to him, an obnoxiously loud banging noise starts from the general direction of their neighbours’ apartment.

Scott groans in misery at the same time that she cries, “Ugh, _now_? Do they not realize that the walls in this building are super thin?”

Scott uses the toothpaste then hands it to her, and says, “I mean, we aren’t exactly having a lot of sex in here, Tessa.”

Her eyes widen at that statement.

He amends, quickly. “With other people, of course.”

“Of course,” she agrees, nodding along so quickly that she might get whiplash, then unceremoniously shoving the toothbrush in her mouth to keep busy.

Scott’s lip twitches, like he knows she did that to get out of the conversation. “I just meant—they don’t know the walls are thin because they haven’t experienced it for themselves.” He starts to brush his teeth too, and his eyes meet hers in the mirror. She spits in the sink, not caring about how gross she might look; Scott’s seen it all, anyway.

Before she puts it back in her mouth, she replies: “Okay, that’s fair. We’ll get ‘em back one day.”

Scott chokes on his toothpaste at that comment and her eyes widen again. _Shit, was that suggestive?_ she wonders, but keeps her mouth busy with her ministrations.

He doesn’t reply, choosing to finish his task, but his eyes are much too amused. She wonders what he’s thinking.

She finishes after him, as he’s rubbing some kind of acne cream into his face, and attempts to leave as quickly as possible, but Scott catches her by the wrist, making sure to not get any of the cream on her skin.

“Uh, wait, Tess—you kinda—”

She turns to look at him again. He wipes his hands on the cloth on the counter, then looks at her face again like something is distracting him. “What?”

“You—um—” Scott points at her face, “toothpaste on your lip. Here, let me—”

The pad of Scott’s thumb brushes the corner of her mouth and her lips part. She can’t help but let him do it, despite the fact that she suddenly can no longer feel any of the air in her lungs, and she feels unnaturally warm even though all she’s wearing is a thin top in the winter. He presses his finger harder against her lip, trying remove the leftover toothpaste, and she wonders what it would feel like to have his thumb in her mouth. She shivers, and her lip burns.

She’s afraid to use her voice, after. His eyes are still on hers, molten and beautiful and intense, everything that Scott is and chooses to be. “Thanks,” she whispers.

“Yeah,” he whispers back. “Goodnight.”

Right. Goodnight.

 

++

It’s been like this for a while, this shift in their relationship. It’s nothing but friendly, of course, they wouldn’t dare to cross that line—but things have been remarkably different since he began living with her.

She’s known him her entire life, is the thing.

She remembers how he eats everything with a fork, even soup, and it’s this absurd little quirk of his that she’s immensely fond of. She remembers that he’s irrationally jealous of his brothers because they seem to be so secure in themselves and he’s just not. She remembers how he used to tease her mercilessly about her gap tooth as a friendly joke until he realized that it made her cry.

She knows every single thing about him; she knows the way in which his voice cracked when he was a teenager, she knows that he used to hide porn magazines in the cabinet behind the basement hutch, and she knows how hard he cried when he caught his first girlfriend cheating on him with one of his friends.

God fucking damn it, she knows him.

But what she didn’t know is how he looked first thing in the morning, voice slurred but tinged with a quality that made her shiver. She didn’t know that he sang in the shower and—lord have mercy—he didn’t actually sound that bad, if he was actually _trying_ every once in a while. She didn’t know that he had a routine for the way he stress-bakes during exam season, one that was beyond endearing and made her want to kiss him all over his stupid face. She didn’t _know_ , okay.

(She didn’t know.)

++

 

She wants to scream.

The course material is starting to look blurry and she can’t tell if it’s because she’s on the verge of tears of if it’s because she’s been staring at it for so long that the words are now nonsensical. She’s so tired, she just wants to go to bed and allow sleep to rid her body of the tightness that she can’t escape otherwise.

Tessa presses her forehead against the coolness of her laptop surface, not caring that it makes her hit her space key on repeat. It’s so late and she can’t bring herself to care anymore.

She breathes. Counts to ten. Takes a drink from the water bottle. Looks around her bedroom and counts all the blue objects in it until her heart rate is back to normal. It’ll be okay, she’s got this. She’s got this. She’s—

“Tess?”

She turns. Scott is standing in her doorway, watching her carefully, almost like he’s been there for a few minutes. Did he see her going through her exercises?

“You good?” he asks her, voice quiet because it’s late. She knows he has his own stuff to do, school-wise, which is probably keeping him up, too—even though they’re both in business, their minors are different and so they run on different schedules. But he still shouldn’t be awake this late.

(She doesn’t entirely recognize the irony of that sentence.)

She clears her throat, knowing she hasn’t spoken aloud in a few hours. “I’m—well. Getting through it.”

Scott sighs, resting his head against the doorframe. “You wanna come to my room?”

She rolls her shoulders in attempt to get her muscles moving, thinking about it. She _has_ been cooped up in her room for a lot of hours today. “Actually, yeah. I can use a change of scenery.” She picks up the flashcards at the side of her desk. “But only if you help me study.”

He looks like he’s considering it, then gives in. “Fine. But you’re not staying up much longer.”

She suppresses a smile and agrees. There’s no fighting with him over matters like this.

She’s in his room, on his bed and sorting through the cards as a refresher, when Scott comes back after finishing his nightly routine, something she did an hour ago. He scoots up on the bed until his back is rested against the bed frame, and she joins in beside him, handing him the cards. “Quiz me.”

They last longer than she expected, longer than she thought he’d allow her to stay awake. She thought it’d be ten minutes and then he’d confiscate her cue cards. But instead he goes almost half an hour, waiting until he can see her drooping against his shoulder, body slacker than it was when she was all on her own an hour earlier.

It’s only when her eyes are half closed and she’s firmly rested against the curve of his shoulder that his quiet voice draws her back into full-consciousness. “Ready to sleep, T?”

“Mhhmm.” She doesn’t want to open her mouth anymore, she knows her voice is shot. Scott collects all her cards for her and places them on his nightstand. She sees him setting his alarm for the hour she’s supposed to wake up to get to her class on time, probably in case she doesn’t wake up tomorrow.

Her limbs feel heavy as she sits up on the bed against him. They’re still on top of the sheets, so it’s not weird yet, but couldn’t it easily get weird if she lets it go on? God, she doesn’t want to move. He’s so comfortable. She knows she has to, though, because if she doesn’t…

She lifts her leg an inch to get up and go to her room, but something stops her. Scott’s voice, in a quiet tone, speaking to her: “Stay.”

Tessa gazes at him and swallows. Scott looks so preciously earnest, like he’s doing this out of pure kindness, offering for her to sleep in the bed with him.

She lets that expression on his face dissolve all the thoughts floating around in her head that make her think that this might not be a good idea. It’s not that weird, right? They’ve fallen asleep in places together before. Usually airports, or planes, or the couch every once in a while—what difference would a bed make?

She stops thinking. Nods. Basks in the aftermath of Scott’s responding smile, that one that he saves specifically for her in their quiet moments, and disintegrates until all she’s dreaming of are the two of them dancing, on and on and on forever.

–

She wakes up before her alarm—his alarm, she supposes—which is a feat in and of itself. Every part of her body is entwined with his; she doesn’t know when they got under the covers, because the last thing she can recall is burrowing her head into his shoulder and praying for sleep to take her fears away.

She has her exam soon though, so she knows that there is no time to dwell on the fact that she feels much too comfortable with her leg between his own, his arm around her waist, and her ear against his chest.

Tessa untangles herself as stealthily as she can, telling herself it was an anomaly and promptly moving forward with her life.

 

++

Things don’t change after that.

(Even if things did change, it’s not anyone’s business; it’s just two friends helping each other out.

Not a big deal… right?)

++

 

Sometimes Scott sleeps in her bed, now.

It’s been weeks and they’re still doing it. It’s not every day, but it’s quite often; it’s much too often, actually, justified with the most ridiculous of excuses, but—well, they’re both fairly burnt out from school at the moment, so that’s been the most common reasoning being passed between them, and… is it _really_ a bad excuse? Tessa thinks it makes perfect sense. She once read a very thorough research study which outlined the health benefits of sleeping beside another person, so sue her if she wants to test that hypothesis.

Tonight, he’s lying there while she studies at her desk. Or at least, he’s attempting to sleep. This time, he’s the one freaked out over school, and she could see the inevitable meltdown all over his face earlier—which is why she suggested he rest in her room.

But she can hear the unevenness of his breaths, the way he twists in his place from her spot at the desk where she’s reading over her materials, and she can’t help that it sends a twinge of concern through her mind.

He shuffles again, rustling the blanket, and she decides enough is enough. Standing quietly, she walks toward him side of the bed and sits at the edge. “Scott,” she starts, voice gentle. “Can’t sleep?”

He sighs, turning over so he’s facing the ceiling. The bags under his eyes are beginning to scare her. “I’m trying,” he croaks in response, clearing his throat after.

“You need to rest,” she tells him, as if he doesn’t know. He has a presentation tomorrow—an important one for recruitment, one that could do wonders for his future. He should be asleep, but he’s in her bedroom instead of his own, agonizing instead of sleeping.

“Hey,” she says, in attempt to make him look at her. He locks eyes. “Do you want me to—”

“Yes, please,” he replies quickly, before she has a chance to finish, over-eager but also possibly not wanting her to say it aloud. She did it for him once before and could tell he loved it a lot; the feeling of her spooning him from behind, an intimate position that she’s decided not to think of as that, anymore. She’s just holding him, protecting him from the world; is that really such a terrible thing to do for her best friend?

She strokes his cheek and brushes a thumb under the crinkle by his eye. “I’ll be back in a minute, okay?”

She brushes her teeth quickly and does a quick facial wash before she turns off her desk light and joins him in bed. It’s effortless, the way his back meets her front and she secures herself around him, wrapping him in her arms, her heart beating rhythmically against his shoulder blades. Scott puts valiant effort into making sure she’s alright, safe, protected, healing… every single day of her life. She’s just returning the favour.

He’s still a bit fidgety—she can see his hands twitching from their place by the pillow—but other than that, he remains still. It only takes another twenty minutes for him to untense and slowly mould against her body until they’re no longer separate beings; instead, they’re one, in the way they were always meant to be.

They may simply be two sets of human bones, permeated with an unmistakable sense of fragility and indestructibility—but the longer she stays intertwined with him, she begins to realize: their refuge, always, will be each other.

–

A few days later, she and Scott are relaxing on the couch, indulging in a television show. School has let up on them so they have a bit of a break; or at least, they don’t have any pressing assignments to tackle. But, for some reason, that hasn’t stopped them from doing The Thing every single night this week.

The show finishes and they’re left staring at the end credits. There’s a comfortable silence that falls over them. She isn’t bothered; she’s been in these moments with Scott for as long as she can remember. So, she knows exactly what he means when he turns to her saying, “Hey, do you want to—?”

“Oh!” There’s only one thing he could possibly mean at this hour of the night, and she’s not strong enough to say no. Will she ever be? “Um, yes.”

His hand is clasped around her wrist as he leads them to his bedroom, both clad in their pajamas. Before they watched their show she convinced Scott to do a face mask with her, citing that it was ‘self-care’ and of the utmost of importance for a relaxation day. He didn’t fight her as hard as she expected he would, but she can still see a spot of the mask at the corner of his jaw. Her eyes don’t leave his face for a single moment.

Scott stops walking in the middle of his room as if he’s realized something. His fingers are still attached to her wrist, and when he realizes a few moments later, he drops it like she’s burned him. “Um, do you mind if I…”

She waits. He says nothing, so she prompts him. “If you…?”

“It’s just that, uh, it’s kind of warm in here tonight. Do you… mind me taking off my shirt?”

_Oh, shit._

The answer to that question raises conflicting emotions in her. On one hand, she does mind; it would be too close, too far, too soon. Too much.

But on the other hand… On the other hand, she _wants_. She wants so much that she doesn’t even care about why she might mind.

“Of course not,” she answers a beat later. Scott hesitates, checking her face for any signs that she might be uncomfortable, but her expression is so blank that he probably can’t read it.

In moments like this, his gaze feels like a searing brand; it feels like a bruise that she wants to press, but chooses not to.

Ultimately, he decides to pull his shirt over his head, taking a hold of the hem and raising it over his head, arms moving through it easily. Her eyes can’t help but stray to his abdomen. _Can you blame me?_ she thinks. There’s a muscled body in front of her. Her mouth goes dry.

She can see Scott deliberately not looking at the expression on her face, so she’s free to stare a bit longer than usual. She plops herself onto the bed, fixing the pillows in the way she likes them. A few days ago, she brought one of her pillows into his room so that he’d have more to sleep with and she’d have easy access to one if she was in the room. She’s made great use of that pillow.

There’s always hesitation when he gets into bed beside her, almost like he’s afraid to take this moment for what it is. Sometimes she gets scared that Scott might feel like he’s pushing her to do something she doesn’t want to, but that’s simply ridiculous. There’s nothing she wants more than cuddles from her best friend in the entire world. Why would she deny herself such a luxury? It would be one of the dumbest decisions of her life; she knows that for a fact.

It takes a few moments, and some initiative on her end to crawl backwards against his front, but eventually he wraps her in his arms, allowing her to melt against him easily. Things are just so _easy_ with Scott. (Well, easy, and incredibly difficult—but the difficult part hasn’t come yet and if it were up to her, it never will.)

She makes a humming sound, snuggling into his warmth. He always runs so warm; he’s like her own personal furnace.

His arms are right in her eyeline in this position, and the way they’re being used to huddle her in close to him is making her feel things, so she can’t help what comes out of her mouth next. “Have I ever told you that you have nice arms?” she asks, voice in a sleepy murmur.

Scott chuckles lowly into her ear, making her shiver. “Thanks?” It comes out as a question more than a sentence.

“It’s a good thing,” she whispers in response, closing her eyes to relax into his hold. “They’re all strong and muscle-y.”

He laughs again, a bit louder this time. He definitely seems more awake than she currently is. “Really doing a lot for my self-esteem here, T,” he teases her lightly. Her heart beats harder in her chest.

 _It’s hot_ , her brain whispers. _You’re hot._ She refuses to say any of that aloud.

She changes the subject. “Hey—that little breakfast diner tomorrow. Number?”

“Oh, definitely. One. Zero, in fact. Affirmative yes.”

Tessa laughs, voice heavy with the need to sleep. “Good,” she whispers. “Night, Scott.”

“Goodnight, Tessa,” he whispers into her ear, and she falls asleep to the feeling of him pressing a kiss into her temple.

–

It’s Valentine’s Day and she’s alone in her apartment.

Scott is home for the weekend and she misses him like he’s another extension of her body and someone has chopped off one of her limbs. Her heart aches with loneliness as she eats popcorn and watches a romantic comedy, knowing for a fact that Scott would love the movie. It’s just not the _same_ when he’s not there. Everything feels somehow _less_ when he’s not around—less happy, less worthwhile, and less enjoyable.

She really should not feel this distressed over being alone in their place while he’s back in Ilderton for his brother’s birthday, but she does. She’s slowly beginning to realize that their codependency before was simply some bizarre kind of codependent-lite. This is another level of codependent, now—one that she’s starting to fear, one that she’s scared she’ll never be rid of.

Maybe they shouldn’t have started sleeping together, she thinks, as she twists in her bed later that night. She feels so restless right now, and she hates it so much. All she wants is a warm embrace to lull her into a dreamless sleep.

She opens her eyes and glances at her clock blearily in the dark. _12:07AM_ blinks back at her. She needs to wake up at six in the morning tomorrow and she’s barely going to get any sleep, just because she can’t rest easily without Scott’s arms around her. So great. So well-adjusted. So healthy.

She’s shutting her eyes and begging the sleep-gods to put her out of her misery, when her phone starts vibrating on her nightstand.

 _Scott_ , it reads back to her. He’s calling her. She sighs, debates whether to leave it, but then realizes she’s not going to sleep anyway so there’s no point. “Hello?” she rasps into the phone when she answers.

“Hey, did I wake you?” Scott’s rumbling voice says over the line. “I’ll just go—”

“No!” she stops him quickly, not wanting him to leave. It feels kind of soothing, like the ache in her chest has eased a bit now that she can hear the sound of his voice. “I couldn’t sleep. It’s fine.”

Wait. Shit, maybe she shouldn’t have revealed that.

“Oh,” Scott says softly. “Um, me too.”

_Him too?_

“I guess I’m…” Scott trails off for a moment, but then, because he’s more brave than she is, admits it. “I think I’ve gotten a bit attached to you recently.”

Her stomach does a little somersault. He’s already said it, so it’s only polite to reciprocate, right? “I feel the same,” she tells him quietly, like it’s a secret. It has been a secret. But she’ll happily admit it to him if he’s willing to say it first.

He lefts out of a breath of relief, likely just as grateful as she is that they both feel the same sense of codependency. “It just feels easier falling asleep with you next to me,” he explains, now that the dam is broken. “I don’t know why. Maybe because I can feel you breathing, know you’re there and that you’re alright…”

She smiles wide, secure in the knowledge that he can’t see the dopey look on her face. “Is this one of those things where you fuss over me way too much?”

He exhales, in guilt and admittance. “Um. Kind of. A little? Kind of not, as well.”

She can’t help but be curious, now that they’re on the topic and finally, legitimately discussing this thing that they’ve been doing. “What do you mean?”

“It’s weird?” he says, more like a question.

“Tell me!”

She hears him take in a shaky breath over the line. “It’s… your body. Like, you feel really solid next to me, and I always run so warm and you’re not really like that so it’s really comfortable sleeping with you.” She can hear the sound of his breath catch at the way he phrased that, but he rolls forward as if he didn’t say it that way. “And you make this rumbling sound when you sleep that’s really soothing. I don’t know.”

Tessa lets out a breathy laugh. “That’s kind of sweet, Scott.”

He laughs. “Way to not reciprocate, T.”

“Stop fishing for compliments,” she says with an amused smile.

“I’m not!”

“You are. But isn’t it obvious that I like it, too? I wouldn’t keep doing it if I didn’t.”

He hums. “I mean, it makes sense, but…”

She snickers internally. He wants her to hype him up like he did with her. “Okay, um. I like how warm you are.”

“Mhm?” she hears, almost like he wants to hear more, as much as she’ll give him.

“And I like your arms,” she admits again.

“Yeah,” Scott replies. His voice is deeper now, oddly enough. “You told me that. I appreciated it.”

“Um, and—”

“Yes?” he says, hopefully.

“I like—” It’s hard for her to say things like this, so it comes out stilted. “The sound of your voice. In my ear. When you’re behind me. It’s… nice.”

Scott breathes deep, not replying. She wonders if she went too far by telling him that. She wonders if he could tell she liked it—every time he’s done it, so far, she hasn’t been able to hold back her full-body shivers. She wonders if that’s why he keeps doing it.

Then, he speaks, voice impossibly low. “I like your legs.”

She swallows. She feels like her heart is lodged in her throat and she can’t speak properly anymore. “I like… when you’re pressed right against me. And I can feel your heartbeat against my back.”

Scott makes an odd noise—one that she can’t decipher because she’s never _heard_ him make a noise like that before. “I like being pressed against your back,” he tells her, voice shaking. Fuck, the way he’s telling her this makes her imagination get away from her. She can just imagine it, the line of his body against her own, his arms around her, pressing against her harder and harder until she can feel his dick hard against her ass and then she’s begging him to fuck her and—

“Scott,” she murmurs, voice full of want. God, she misses him, she wants him, why isn’t he here with her right now? She needs him.

He groans, like he’s in pain. Her brain melts.

Time freezes. The air of her bedroom is instantly overcome with tension.

(She feels her body suddenly go cold and insanely hot, in the same way it always does when she knows she’s getting wet.)

Fucking hell, what are they doing?

This needs to end, now. She fakes a yawn. “Scott, I’m going to sleep now,” she tells him, and hangs up without waiting for reply. She texts him quickly after so he doesn’t spend the rest of the night awake and fretting—a single heart, for good measure.

Her heart races for the next thirty minutes of her life.

–

Tessa isn’t quite sure what happened a few days ago, but she’s doing a damn good job at ignoring it ever happened.

Scott returned from Ilderton today and since then, things have been completely fine. They texted in the same way they always have the day after the phone call, and things are completely normal between them. Completely normal.

(So why does she feel like she’s on the verge of panic every hour of the day?)

Scott asks her if he can join her that night and all she wants is for him to hold her, so she can’t help but say yes.

She’s in some cotton shorts and a sports bra when he comes to join her in bed, this time. He’s forgone a shirt; he hasn’t worn one to sleep with her since he asked if she minded him not wearing one. She doesn’t mind at all. Her mouth waters at the thought of skin to skin contact—it’s the entire reason she’s only in a sports bra in the first place.

The problem is: when she snuggles into Scott, her body feels so tense that she’s afraid she won’t be sleeping comfortably at _all_.

“You okay?” Scott asks her. His lamp is still on since they only just got into bed and it illuminates a golden light over them in the room.

She shies away from him, deciding to lay on her back. He’s propped his head up on his hand, elbow resting on the pillow so he can see her face clearly, but she refuses to look at his face.

“I’m just… tense.” It’s the truth—a half truth, but still valid. She glances above her at Scott’s eyes, which look dark and private during the lighting of the room.

Scott’s eyebrows furrow out of concern. He knows she’s in a lull, school-wise, so there’s no particular reason for her to be stressed out. “Is there a reason why?”

She shrugs, choosing to stay silent. Fifth amendment rights. That’s how it goes, isn’t it? She’s afraid he’ll bring up the anxiety of it all, but he surprises her when he doesn’t.

He looks at her, considering. “Want a massage?”

If she was drinking something, she’d have choked. Instead, her tongue feels thick in her mouth, too large to use to reply. “Uh.”

He quirks an eyebrow. “I can get on your back and we’ll do it that way. Start from your shoulders. What do you say?”

She wants to say… Jesus Christ, that sounds like heaven, but she doesn’t know how she’ll survive with his hands all over her knowing she chose _today_ of all days to wear minimal clothing.

She can’t say that out loud, though, so instead she just says: “That would be nice.”

Scott’s smile is so light, she can’t help but feel a pang of hurt. These things don’t mean the same thing to him as they do to her—how could they? He sees her as his best friend and nothing other than that.

Tessa flips over so she can hide her face in the mattress. Scott crawls on top of her until he’s—oh, shit, he’s _straddling her back_.

His hands rub into her shoulders. They’re light at first, pressing the heels of his hands into her shoulders and then he adjusts himself on her back, weighing himself down on her as she shudders.

Her brain short-circuits. She can’t possibly think about anything but how big his hands feel against the nape of her neck, the pads of his fingers brushing her hair aside so he can get a better look at her back. He squeezes her shoulders, moving lower until he’s at her mid-back, and then asks her in a ragged voice: “Is this okay?”

She tries to breathe and steady herself before she answers. “Um—you can—I mean—”

“What is it, T?” he asks soothingly. “Tell me, this is for you.”

“Can you maybe,” she starts, then rushes out the rest of the sentence, “do it harder?”

Scott’s hands slip off her back. She wonders if it was an accident or if it’s from the shock of her saying the words _do it harder_. She hears an audible gulp, and then his palms return to her skin, squeezing her much harder. “Like this?” he whispers.

She can’t help the fact that she lets out this deep, guttural groan. It feels so unbelievably good that she decides that she wants to die like this: under his body as he presses into her.

Scott takes a shaky breath at her enthusiastic response and continues to work at her muscles. His hands are warm, leaving trails of a burning sensation throughout her body. It’s only when he presses down on her back and her nipples rub against the inside of her sports bra that she realizes how turned on she is by this.

She licks her lips, trying to stay calm. But the harder he presses into her, the more aware she becomes of how hard her nipples have pebbled against her clothing. The friction feels so fucking good that she wonders if she can come from this, from the feeling of her tits grinding into the mattress. She can’t imagine how she must feel down below; her decision to go without underwear now seems unfortunate.

The mattress is flat beneath her, with nothing to rub against, but she can’t help but unconsciously buck her hips downward for friction.

She moans, long and hard from the relief she gets.

Scott stills, and she remembers where she is, and who she’s with.

Her heart stops, and she craves the sweet release of death.

“Tess?” Scott murmurs. “Are you…”

_Are you turned on? Are you getting off? Are you... wet?_

“...okay?” he finishes, unsure.

Tessa opens her mouth but nothing comes out; she knows she can’t get out of this easily. Instead, all she’s able to say in a wrecked voice is, “ _Scott_.”

He leans down closer to her head until he can speak more clearly into her ear. “Hey,” he whispers, concern lacing his tone. “What is it?”

Her eyes roll back. Fuck, why does he sound so good? Why does she feel so _hot_ all of a sudden?

“Scott,” she murmurs again, not making sense. “ _Please_.”

She hears him swallow, and she’s afraid he’s catching on, but isn’t that also what she’s going for, here? “T… do you...”

She lets out a dry sob. “ _Please_ ,” she moans into the pillow beneath her, not knowing how else to ask for what she wants. She twists her head so he can see the need on her face, and when she locks eyes with him—

Scott’s lips are bitten red and his pupils are shot wide. His breathing is just as laboured as hers is, she just didn’t notice it before.

And his face.

God, he looks like he might actually want her, and that’s what makes her tilt her chin, begging for a kiss.

Three things happen in quick succession after that: she realizes his dick is hard, pressed into the small of her back; his hand moves lower, into unsafe territory, palming her ass; and, finally, he leans down and kisses her. The angle hurts her neck but she truly couldn’t give less of a fuck; all she cares about is the way his slack mouth feels against hers, heated and open and wet as their lips and tongues slide together.

Here’s what it feels like: it feels inevitable. Almost like a tipping point, one that she’s been inching toward the past few weeks that she wasn’t quite sure she’d ever reach. But now she’s here, she’s finally here and she’s with the one person she desperately wanted this with and her chest feels so full that she could burst, and the space between her legs is pulsing so intensely that she might come from _nothing_ if he doesn’t get his fingers on her soon, but that doesn’t even make sense.

Nothing makes sense in Tessa’s brain; she feels like she’s no longer a real person, all that’s left of her is want and lust and love, and is there anything else she really needs, anyway?

Scott is still straddling her back. He’s so hard and she can feel it. The thought of that makes her wetter, moaning in delight when he pulls away from her mouth and shifts his body lower so that he has her pressed against the bed, face-down, and his dick hard-up against the curve of her ass.

He slips his hands under the tight band of her sports bra against her back, and his voice returns to her ear. “Can I take this off?” he husks.

Goosebumps raise all over her skin. “Yes, please.”

Then, she’s naked from the waist up and she shivers, but it isn’t cold at all in the room. She feels like she’ll begin sweating if they continue at this rate. She clutches the sheets, holding them on for purchase of _something_ as he takes his sweet time littering kisses along her spine. Inching upwards, upwards, upwards, millimeter by millimeter, until he reaches the nape of her neck and holds her hair back to sink his teeth in there.

She mewls as he soothes his tongue over it, grinding against the nothingness of the flat bed once again, when he slips his hand between her body and the bed to dip into her cotton shorts. He stops before he reaches her, realizing she’s not wearing any underwear.

“Fuck, Tess,” he groans. His fingers move lower and he instantly finds her wet and bare. She didn’t plan this, she would’ve never expected _this_ , but she feels indebted to her past self when his thumb presses into her clit. He kisses her neck, burrowing his face in the crook of it while he touches her, and remarks to her, matter-of-factly like it isn’t the hottest thing he’s ever said to her: “You’re so fucking wet.”

She can tell that her body doesn’t know whether to feel shame or arousal at that, but arousal wins over. At this angle, she can feel his cock against her and she grinds against his hand, and he’s able to slip two fingers inside of her cunt easily. She’s so soaked that it takes three thrusts for him to add another, and then she’s rubbing her clit against the heel of his hand while he grinds into her ass, and she can _hear_ the sound of his fingers fucking in and out of her but fuck if it isn’t everything. Fuck if it isn’t so goddamn good that she’s ruined for everyone else for the rest of her life.

“Tessa,” he moans, loud and clear for her to behold, and she shudders.

(He rarely calls her that, is the thing. Scott has thousands of nicknames for her—carefully chosen, seamlessly fitting each facet of their relationship, effortlessly rolling off of the tongue. She thinks that he doesn’t know that he has the power to kill her, just by speaking to her in that raw voice; all he needs to utter is _Tessa_ for her to dissolve beyond this realm of existence.)

“Scott,” she whimpers, hating her lack of words. She wants to say something of worth, but she doesn’t know how to anymore.

“Tell me,” he murmurs into her neck, lips pressing marks of adoration all over her skin.

“I want—” she cries, trying. “I want—”

“ _Yes_ ,” he groans as he licks her neck. “Tell me what you want, Tess. I’ll give you anything you want.”

Tessa shuts her eyes. She fucks down against his hand, thinking of the three fingers stretching her cunt. Her mouth has gotten so dry from the moaning. “You—inside,” is all she can manage to express.

His fingers slide deeper inside her and she cries out, so loudly that she might wake the neighbours. Her cunt tingens around his fingers at the thought, blood rushing through her ears as she imagines someone listening to her getting fucked by him.

“Shh,” he soothes to quiet her, reading her mind. “You’ll wake everyone up.”

It sparks something in her, an unknown thing she didn’t even realize was there before. Her moan turns more high-pitched, she does a full-body shudder, and she clenches around his fingers again.

The sharp intake of breath that happens next is all-too telling. He lets out an almost breathy laugh and switches gears, knowing exactly what she wants.

“Or... do you want them to know, Tess?” he murmurs into her ear, bucking his hips against her behind harder. “You want them to know how good you can take me.”

“Fuck,” she hisses, rocking against him. She whines, louder, and she finds that she really _does_ want people to hear her. She wants everyone to know how good he is at taking care of her, how good he makes her feel when he fills her. “Pleaseplease _please_ —”

Scott lets out a destroyed sound. Then, scrambling to give her what she wants: “Okay, Tess, I got you, I know what you want, don’t worry.” He’s rambling and so endearing like this. In the meantime, she shucks her shorts without moving her position, kicking them off. She watches as he reaches toward the nightstand, probably for a condom, but she slaps his hand away. She wants to feel all of him. He says, voice cracked and apologetic:  “We need to, baby, we can not wear one another time, okay?”

She whines, not wanting it but knowing he’s right. “‘Kay, just— _please_.”

His breath hitches and she hears rustling behind her, likely putting on his protection as quick as he can. “Okay. Come on, I’m going to take care of you now, just—here.”

 _Here_ is punctuated by the feeling of his cock entering her, stretching her until she’s filled to the brim with nothing but him, him, him.

“ _Oh_ ,” she whimpers as he slides his dick out at the slowest pace, making her feel every inch of him inside of her. “Oh, _fuck_ , Scott.”

She feels him pressing open-mouthed kisses along her spine, thrusting in and out languidly. “I know, sweet girl. I’ll give you what you want, I’ll give you everything—”

“I wanna—I want—” Fuck, she doesn’t even know. Her moans are getting louder and the bedframe is banging against the wall but she doesn’t even fucking care. Let them hear her. Let them hear how good they sound right now, skin slapping against each other, groans filling the empty air.

“God, you’re so good. You’re fucking perfect, aren’t you, T?” His teeth bite down at the back of her neck again, and she wonders if she’ll be able to see a line of teeth marks in her skin tomorrow. “You’re perfect and you’re _mine_. You’re mine, you’re—”

“ _Yes_ ,” she tells him, panting along with him. She’s his; she’s his forever. She’s his everything.

“Let go, pretty girl, come on—look at you, fucking hell, you’re a goddess.” He whimpers, and his movements become more erratic as he thrusts into her. “So fucking gorgeous.”

Tessa shudders beneath him, and she can feel herself getting to the edge. God, he’s going to come inside her, he might be wearing a condom but it’s her cunt that’s squeezing around him, making him come, letting him mark her as _his_ for the remainder of time.

Scott keens, and then he says, voice shaking so hard she can’t even understand how he gets it out: “Tess, I can’t—I’m going to—”

“Want it,” she moans, knowing he’s going to come. “C’mon, want it hard.”

“ _Fuck_ ,” he groans, and she can feel it, the way his dick twitches inside her as he comes, driving into her harder like she asked for. Oh, god, he’s inside of her and he’s fucked her. Scott is filling her over and over as the pleasure builds as he takes hold of her clit and pinches, helping her reach her highest pleasure—and it’s not just that which gets her there; it’s the vulnerability of it: being split open by her best friend’s cock, her body pressed into the bed.

She doesn’t know she’s crying until he’s whispering into her hair, slipping out of her and turning her over to kiss her all over her face. “I’m here, baby, I’m here,” Scott murmurs, pressing kisses to her temple, then her cheekbone, then her jaw. It makes her want to cry harder; she’s never felt so adored and exposed, she never thought this kind of feeling existed in real life. She doesn’t understand why she’s crying or when she even started.

Tomorrow, she’ll wonder if it was the force of her orgasm that triggered it. But tonight, she chooses to crawl on top of him, face wet with tears and needing to be as close to him as possible even though they’re done having sex. She whimpers, not knowing what she needs but knowing she needs something, anything, and then Scott slides two fingers into her cunt again, holding them inside her so she has something to keep her satisfied.

He knows her so well. He knows every part of her, now; every secret hidden carefully in the crevices that she kept private.

The constricting feeling in her chest eases.

She doesn’t even notice that she falls asleep like that; on top of him, his fingers deep in her, a soothing voice lulling her to a different reality.

–

She wakes up feeling confused.

Confused because someone is kissing her shoulder. It feels good, she notices, making a humming sound in response. It feels right.

Her eyes fly open. _Scott_.

“Hi,” he whispers into her shoulder blade. Scott being Scott could probably tell something was off from the way she stilled, remembering what happened last night.

She swallows and turns her body so that she’s facing him. She feels so naked. “Hello?” she says, not sure of how to go about this.

He places his hand on her jaw, cupping her face. The way that he looks at her—as if she holds the answers to all the questions he’s ever had—makes her want to cry. “Can I kiss you?” he asks, soft as his thumb strokes her bottom lip.

She’ll admit it: there’s nothing she wants more in the world than to kiss him right now, to keep that look on his face permanently etched behind her eyelids.

But more than that, she can’t stand to be left broken when he inevitably tells her it was just sex, it was just kissing, it was just _nothing_. She doesn’t think she’ll be able to live if she hears those words from his mouth.

Because there’s something special about Scott, a quality that isn’t present in others, that makes him magnetic. Irresistible. It’s his vulnerability and bravado and compassion. It’s his heart. It’s why she absolutely cannot do this, not one bit; she didn’t stand a chance at fucking him and not falling in love with him all at once, so she doesn’t know why she even bothered.

“Scott,” she tries, instead of answering him. His hand falls, and his face looks so guarded—like he’s preparing for her to say something that he doesn’t want to hear. There’s a lump in her throat, and she can’t seem to get the words past, but she puts all her strength into barrelling on. “Do you have feelings for me?” she asks him, more straightforward than she usually is, but she can’t possibly bear to utter a confession before he does. She is not that brave. She needs to hear it from him first.

She looks at him, and he’s shockingly blank-faced and quiet.

It terrifies her.

Tessa has known Scott for almost their entire lives, and there have been very, very few moments when she couldn’t read his face. Fucking hell, what is she supposed to do now?

“Number,” Tessa demands, quietly, and then repeats her question. “Do you?”

Scott stays silent, mouth dropping open at her suddenness.

“Scott— _number_.”

He squeezes his eyes shut, agony written all over his face. “I—I can’t do this on the fucking number scale, T—”

She can hear herself crack into two; she doesn’t know what she’s going to do with the half of her that’s ruined beyond repair. “It’s either good or it’s bad.” She grits it out, like it’s as easy as that. It’s black and white. It must be, right?

He seems like he’s weighing something on his mind, then breaks. “Tessa, I don’t know which one is right for you.”

“No,” she replies, feeling eerily calm and mildly catastrophic. “You’re just stalling, and I can’t—I can’t _do_ this—I just—” Fuck, she can’t breathe, _why can’t she breathe?_

His eyes widen. “Tessa?” Scott asks, panic seeping into his voice. “Tessa? Number, Tessa!”

“Fuck you,” she chokes out, counting to ten and breathing as steadily as she possibly can. “You— _fuck_ , we shouldn’t have done this.”

Jesus Christ, what have they _done_?

The silence she receives in response is deafening. Or—no. It’s not. Tessa has always found oxymorons unnecessary. The silence is quiet, as it is meant to be. It’s serene, almost, the steady moment before everything she knows to be true is ruined. It’s nothingness; no explanation, no reason, no justification. Nothing.

Most of all, it’s claustrophobic. Suffocating.

Tessa can barely look at him anymore. She drops her eyes to the floor, blood rushing erratically in his ears, and suddenly she wants to cry. It only takes one look at Scott’s face to know that he doesn’t love her back, and simply doesn’t know how to break it to her. Because that damned, ever-good heart of his could not possibly stand to see hers crack.

The feeling that hits her is undoubtedly devastation. Tessa’s body feels like a phantom. It’s an out of body experience, watching herself stumble backward and toward the door. She doesn’t even bother to collect her clothes in the process. He’s seen her, anyway; he’s seen everything and he’s _taken_ everything and she doesn’t know how she’ll get past this but she has to, somehow. Her throat feels tight, and she’s struggling to stay upright. She takes a difficult, final breath, spares one last glance at the room, and—

She flees.

 

++

(Except, here’s the catch: she can’t flee, god damnit, she can’t go _anywhere_. Her hiding spots are his study spots, and her home is his home, and her refuge is his arms. She can’t go anywhere, because in every place she visits, there’s an unmistakable sense of Scott in every corner. She can’t get away. She’s never wanted to get away before now; she’s always welcomed the reminder of him enthusiastically, letting it soothe her when she’s in need of comfort.

Tonight, each reminder feels like an impending calamity, waiting to destroy her.)

++

 

 _Please come home_ , Scott’s words read back to her.

He’s texted her fourteen times in the past six hours, but that’s the one that gets to her.

She wonders what he means by home. Their apartment hasn’t been theirs for very long—they only acquired it eight months ago. Somehow, though, it’s become her place of solace. It’s where she goes to hide, where she goes for food, where she goes for cuddles and hugs and a warm smile. It’s where she goes for _him_ , and isn’t that all there is to it, when it gets boiled down to the final, most important layer of it. He’s her home, he’s the place she goes to for shelter, he’s the one who calms her down when she freaks out. Right now, more than anything, she just needs her fucking best friend.

Was it smart to freak out and leave him like that? Maybe not, she admits. But she hopes he’ll understand when she tells him the truth. It’s what she owes him, anyway, after last night. If he can give her an orgasm, she can give him honesty… right? After over a decade of being her best friend, it’s the least she can grant him with.

She walks home, boots cold from the winter slush beneath her soles.

–

She turns the key in her door and walks in to see Scott pacing the kitchen. He turns as soon as the door is open and she’s shrugging off her jacket, and then he zips toward her so fast that she’s surprised furniture didn’t move in his rush.

He opens his mouth, looking absolutely terrified, and then says without prelude: “I’m in love with you.”

She chokes, unable to control the morphing of her face. _What?_

He nods seriously as he takes in the expression, as if he was expecting the shock but unbothered by it. “I am. I’m in love with you, Tessa.”

“I’m—” _in love with you too_ , “in shock.”

Scott laughs loudly at the bluntness of that response. “Um, I’m… sorry?”

She’s too surprised to feel the great relief of it all, the knowledge that this wasn’t all for nothing and that he actually feels the same way. “I’m also in love with you,” she rushes out, and Scott starts walking toward her, expression full of awe. “But—”

Scott stops in front of her, places his fingers on her lips, and shakes his head. “No buts.”

“But—” she says, muffled against his fingertips. He smiles, small and shy, like she’s making all his dreams come true, dreams that he didn’t know he could have before now.

He kisses her forehead, hands holding her hips now, and it grounds her in the moment. “No buts. Although... Shit, Tess, you can’t run away like that.”

 _Well, I did_ , she thinks wryly, but what comes out is an anguished: “I’m sorry.”

“Like, seriously, do you know how freaked I was? I thought you were having a panic attack and that you’d be all alone and—”

Tessa holds his face in her hands and steadies him so he looks at her. “Scott, you can’t protect me from everything. There are some things I need to do by myself. I’m a big girl—I can handle things on my own.”

He closes his eyes, turning into her palm so that his nose brushes the centre. “I know that—trust me, I know you can take care of yourself. But you don’t have to anymore, don’t you see?” When he opens his eyes again, they’re bright and focused as if she’s the only thing that exists. “I’m here.”

She remembers him whispering that to her after they had sex, kissing her all over to calm her down. “I love you,” she says simply, and falls into him. He hugs her so tightly, keeping her warm and secure in his arms. She loves his arms. She loves everything about him.

“Don’t ever leave me again,” Scott whispers into her ear. She shivers. “Please—I just—I can’t take it. I’m supposed to take care of you. I can’t do that if you run away. Okay?”

Her heart thunders within her, lightning shocking her with the realization that she, too, can have this. “Okay,” she murmurs.

“Unless you don’t want me anymore. Then, you can leave anytime, okay? I just need you to be happy and safe.”

“Okay.”

“When I don’t know if you’re okay, I lose my mind. I need to take care of you, okay?”

They’ve said the word ‘okay’ fifty times in the last two minutes, but she doesn’t give a damn. She never thought she could reach this kind of happiness, and yet, here it is. She tilts her head up, in askance for a kiss.

It’s against his lips that she murmurs, for the final time: “Okay.”

He breathes out, and she can feel the relief through his body in her own. “Okay.”

–

She falls asleep that night, peaceful with moonbeams glittering over their naked forms, no worries between them whatsoever. She’s locked inside his arms and this time, she finds immense relief in the fact that she’ll never have to spend another moment away from him again.

//

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! If this made you feel anything, feel free to drop me a comment! Happy Valentine’s Day from me, to all of you. <3
> 
> As always, you can find me on my [writing Tumblr](http://falsettodrop.tumblr.com), or for fandom and figure skating, on my [sideblog](http://viewsfromthestyx.tumblr.com).


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